Petrology and Geothermometry of the Little Michiru Complex, Malawi

S. W. Morel
Granary Farm, Chitcombe Road, Broad Oak, E. Sussex TN31 6EU

Abstract: The Little Michiru complex is a composite intrusion of pyroxenite and pyroxene syenite which is located at the boundary between amphibolite and granulite facies gneisses in the Shire rift valley. Pyroxene and feldspar chemistry shows that the intrusion consolidated from two magmatic fractions, one a pyroxenite cumulate that equilibrated at 870–1000 °C, the other a partly anatectic pyroxene syenite magma which metasomatized the surrounding gneisses during granulite-facies metamorphism and equilibrated at a temperature of 730–830 °C at 7 kbar.

Keywords: pyroxenite • pyroxene syenite • petrology • geothermometry • Little Michiru complex • Malawi

Mineralogical Magazine; June 1989 v. 53; no. 371; p. 285-291; DOI: 10.1180/minmag.1989.053.371.02
© 1989, The Mineralogical Society
Mineralogical Society (www.minersoc.org)